Okay, for real this time. According to Variety, Disney is definitely not rehiring James Gunn for “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and will now begin the search for his replacement.
Not even the combined force of the cast of the film and Marvel Studios, led by Kevin Feige, was enough to dissuade Alan Horn from his decision. After a long month since Gunn’s firing due to the resurfacing of decade-old tweets that featured offensive jokes about pedophilia, many were torn on the whether or not Disney should bring the director back into the fold. Some adamantly agreed with the studio’s decision, and even though they are clearly misguided, believe that Gunn is, in fact, a pedophile based on the tweets. While others tout the history of the tweets, showing that the filmmaker has owned up to his offensive past and apologized numerous times, and point to the fact that these tweets came well before he was hired by Disney.
No matter your stance on the subject, it appears that Disney had a “courtesy” meeting to “clear the air” between the studio and Gunn and never had any intention to rehire the ousted director. This comes after the ‘Guardians’ cast signed an open letter of support for Gunn and reports that Feige was leading the charge to get Disney to go back on the studio’s decision.
Variety confirms that Feige was, indeed, pushing for Gunn’s rehire, but that he ultimately supports the decision made by the studio. However, Feige was not in the room with Horn and the director, since he’s out of town. Now, once the Marvel Studios boss is back in town, he will work with Horn to find Gunn’s replacement. What that means for the scheduling of ‘Guardians 3’ is anyone’s guess, as it’s likely that any director that is hired will want to tweak Gunn’s script to make it their own.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” was set to go before cameras in early 2019, for a scheduled 2020 release date. Now, it appears that all of that is subject to change.